Humans generally find it useful or entertaining to view images or projections of visual representations of real or imaginary things. Therefore, we have developed technologies to enable us to place visual representations, such as still images and moving images, onto surfaces or screens so that we can enjoy or benefit from such visual displays. The content of such information represented on display screens is typically generated by a computer or by a recording and broadcast of the recording.
Screens and displays in common use include television (TV) screens and computer monitors (collectively “displays”). These types of displays have evolved with technological advancements. Early types were illuminated by electron beams from electron guns, the beams sweeping charged particles across a generally-rectangular display screen that was coated with a phosphorescent material. The material would then glow or emit visible light corresponding to the image caused by the electron source and magnetic fields in the orthogonal dimensions of the display screen. The result was a visible intensity map (black and white) viewable image. Further advancements brought color displays, which themselves evolved in time to include cathode ray tubes (CRTs), liquid crystal displays (LCD), plasma displays, light emitting diode (LED) displays, and others.
These displays are generally two-dimensional as far as their viewable surface design. That is, present displays of this type are basically flat or almost flat. Accordingly, persons viewing these displays see substantially the same view of the object being displayed no matter where the viewers are situated with respect to the two-dimensional displays. This makes viewing such displays equivalent to viewing a flat two-dimensional photo, painting, or similar object, with the addition of dynamic imagery (video) in some cases. Therefore, even when depicting what is in reality a three-dimensional object (e.g., a soccer ball or a planet) these displays flatten the three-dimensional object completely for presentation on the two-dimensional displays. Most of us have come to accept this as normal, but it is an abstraction that is not natural. The fact that some displays have a gentle curvature to their face does not cure this simplification or abstraction.
It is therefore interesting and/or useful to consider alternative displays that provide either a more natural sensation of viewing a two- or three-dimensional scene.